Semiconductor memory devices are used extensively to store data. Memory devices can be characterized according to two general types: volatile and non-volatile. Volatile memory devices such as static random access memory (SRAM) and dynamic random access memory (DRAM) lose data that is stored therein when power is not continuously supplied thereto.
DRAM based on the electrically floating body effect has been proposed (see for example “A Capacitor-less 1T-DRAM Cell”, S. Okhonin et al., pp. 85-87, IEEE Electron Device Letters, vol. 23, no. 2, February 2002 and “Memory Design Using One-Transistor Gain Cell on SOI”, T. Ohsawa et al., pp. 152-153, Tech. Digest, 2002 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, February 2002). Such memory eliminates the capacitor used in the conventional 1T/1C memory cell, and thus is easier to scale to smaller feature size. In addition, such memory allows for a smaller cell size compared to the conventional 1T/1C memory cell.
Widjaja and Or-Bach describes a bi-stable SRAM cell incorporating a floating body transistor, where more than one stable state exists for each memory cell (for example as described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/00246284 to Widjaja et al., titled “Semiconductor Memory Having Floating Body Transistor and Method of Operating” and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0034041, “Method of Operating Semiconductor Memory Device with Floating Body Transistor Using Silicon Controlled Rectifier Principle”, which are both hereby incorporated herein, in their entireties, by reference thereto). This bi-stability is achieved due to the applied back bias which causes impact ionization and generates holes to compensate for the charge leakage current and recombination.
In a memory array comprising rows and columns of memory cells, performing an operation on a memory cell may trigger a change in its surrounding memory cells, a condition often referred to as disturb. There is a continuing need for improving disturb resistance in memory cells. Two-transistor memory cells, for example as described in “Capacitorless Twin-Transistor Random Access Memory (TTRAM) on SOI”, F. Morishita et al, Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, 2005, pp. 435-438, “A configurable enhanced TTRAM macro for system-level power management unified memory”, F. Morishita et al., Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of, vol. 42 no. 4 (2007), pp. 853-861, “A high-density scalable twin transistor RAM (TTRAM) with verify control for SOI platform memory IPs”, K. Arimoto et al., Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of, vol. 42, no. 11 (2007), pp. 2611-2619, and “A Scalable ET2RAM (SETRAM) with Verify Control for SoC Platform Memory IP on SOI”, K. Arimoto et al. pp. 429-432, Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, 2006, which are hereby incorporated herein, in their entireties, may improve the disturb resistance of the memory cells.